World War II, then and now: Robert Schario was combat medic in two wars

Gary Brown CantonRep.com Correspondent @gbrownREP

Saturday

Jun 28, 2014 at 7:00 AM

Robert Schario of Plain Township served in the Pacific Theater in World War II aboard the USS Woodworth, a destroyer escort.

Robert Schario’s duty as a ship’s medic simultaneously offered him peace of mind and constant doubt.

“I held sick call twice a day, and fortunately I never had any of our personnel injured,” said Schario, who served in the Pacific Theater aboard the USS Woodworth, a destroyer escort. “My thought always was ‘Am I going to be able to do it, treat people (for wounds), if I have to?’”

On Jan. 12, 1945, an explosion in the harbor in which his ship was based at Ulithi Atoll in the Caroline Islands quickly answered his question.

Floating mines released by an enemy submarine tore into the hull of an LCI, killing one man and injuring 34 others aboard the landing craft.

“The doctor on our ship and I were the first two medical professionals to arrive at the scene,” said Schario, who jumped into the LCI from a small launch, and landed with the doctor on a deck full of injured sailors.

“In front of me were these 34 patients, just laying there. The doctor went down one side and I went down the other, treating them. It was just a mass of blood. Everyone on the deck was wounded. I had to put on compression bandages, wrap tourniquets on them, give them morphine — whatever first aid required.

“These were the first war casualties I’d seen. My only thought was to thank God that everything I learned in the hospital corps school came back to me. I knew what to do, even though I had never done it.”

BECAME A SAILOR

Schario, a 90-year-old Plain Township resident who grew up in the southeast end of Canton, was 19 when he enlisted in the Navy.

Assigned to the Woodworth and trained to offer medical attention to the wounded, Schario and others aboard the destroyer escort would help pick up downed pilots, among other duties.

“Our job was picket duty,” he explained. “We’d get out in front of the convey. We were the eyes and ears of the group.”

At one point Schario and his fellow crewmen were assigned for two months to a “recreational” island, where soldiers and sailors were sent in waves for a couple of hours of rest and relaxation — two beers and some time away from war.

“The whole beach was coral,” he recalled, “so I took care of the guys who got torn up.”

His ship cruised the Pacific — Okinawa, Iwo Jima, the Philippines — and returned to port at Ulithi. The medicine he practiced was both practical and precise. At one point he picked a rusty piece of metal out of the eye of an engine room sailor by making it stick to the edge of a potato. Another time he sewed 22 stitches in the face of a sailor who’s small boat had crashed into a concrete structure.

“The doctor looked at him and said ‘I couldn’t have done it better myself,’ and went to bed. I did my job.”

Schario’s ship was one of those in the fleet gathered in Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender ceremony in 1945. But, his discharge in 1946 was not the end of military service for Schario.

After a stint in the Navy Reserves from 1947 to 1950, he was called to active duty from 1950 to 1952, serving on land with the Marines in Korea.

His shooting before and after his military service with the McKinley Rifle and Pistol Club served him well in his training in marksmanship for the Marines. His skill was proven during one rifle shooting test, when his trainers had raised five straight flags erroneously indicating he had missed the target when he actually had gotten five bulls-eyes.

“None of the others had hit the bulls-eye, just the paper around it, so they hadn’t thought to look there,” Schario explained. “My officer told me ‘You can leave now; we need to train those guys who can’t shoot.’”

AFTER THE WAR

Following his military service, he continued to shoot with the club.

In fact it was at the club that he met the woman who would become his wife, Carol. Married in 1956, the couple has three children — Douglas, Annette and Stephen — and 11 grandchildren.

Beyond shooting and hunting, Schario “did a lot of camping” with his family.

He also worked a long career, staying in the medical field.

“For my entire working life I was attached to something medical,” said Schario. “I worked for Bowman Medical for years, and after that I went to work for Stark Surgical Supplies.”

Schario’s years at war are long behind him, but the memories his service return at times, such as when he took one of the Honor Flight trips to Washington, D.C. Visiting war memorials there reminded him that for veterans such as himself, World War II was not just history, it was a part of his life.

“I don’t regret any of it,” he said, particularly the moments after an explosion in a harbor off Ulithi Atoll, where he put his medic skills to work.

“After we took the wounded to a ship, a destroyer, the doctor and I stayed with them. The doctor was a surgeon and he started working on them and I helped him with that surgery. Then they transferred them to a hospital ship. We went back to our ship and I never saw any of them again. Out of that 34 we treated, we lost two. But, I know that I helped save some lives.”

Reach Gary at 330-580-8303 or gary.brown@cantonrep.com.

On Twitter: @gbrownREP

ROBERT SCHARIO

PLAIN TOWNSHIP

Navy

1943-1946

Navy Reserves

1947-1952

Navy

1950-1952

World War II

Hospitalman 1st Class

Medic

USS Woodworth

Destroyer

Pacific Theater

Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Philippines

Korean War

Attached to Marines

Korea, Japan

Honors: American Area Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Theater Medal with two battle stars, Philippines Liberation Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Korean Service Medal, United Nations Medal

Age: 90

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